Customer Reviews

Lay Down My Sword and Shield

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Hackberry Holland came on the literary landscape in 1971, talking about the bullet holes in his porch left by John Wesley Hardin when the outlaw confronted Hack's grandfather before relating how an up-and-coming politician ended up far from the corridors of power.

In 2009, Hack was seen again in Burke's brilliant RAIN GODS. Now, Hack's introduction, LAY DOWN MY SWORD AND SHIELD, has been reprinted.

Son of a congressman, Hack is on the verge of becoming one himself. All he has to do is live through endless cocktail parties, meetings with donors and pretending to be happily married to his ice queen wife. Anyone who survived being a Korean prisoner of war should be able to put up with a few wealthy Texas housewives and a senator, right? Instead, Hack is drinking himself into oblivion.

When an Army buddy calls from jail after being arrested walking a picket line with Mexican workers near the border, Hack hightails it to help. It's the end of his old life and the beginning of his new one.

This isn't just Hack's story. Burke uses his questing, honest hero not only to show Hack's personal journey to make his life meaningful. He also shows what it meant when the song would soon be "The Times They Are A'Changin' ". Whether it's non-white people trying to make the American dream come true, whites who brutally try to stop time's progress or an opportunistic politician and someone who scares even him, Hack crosses their paths.

Their combined stories provide a fascinating and important glimpse into what life was like for some people during the 60s. LAY DOWN MY SWORD AND SHIELD is a stirring remembrance of a time when people's actions made profound impacts. That Burke brought Hack back in RAIN GODS only makes the original story more powerful.

Those who have read RAIN GODS will want to see where Hack came from, while those who are introduced to him through this first novel will want to pick up the later book right away. Even though they are set decades apart, they are connected by a character who remained true to himself throughout the years. That's the kind of power James Lee Burke brings to his stories.

This will be a departure in some way for people that have read the series about Dave, but for those of us that simply love his written word, this is a stunning piece of work by Burke. I have read this book twice, something I don't do too often because there are just too many things stacked up in my "to read" pile. Hack is a good man plagued by demons of his own making, something that is NOT a departure in a Burke novel and is what makes this book one that is not easily forgotten. I think that the struggle we all make in our lives to do what is "right" is just rife with areas of grey. This is what makes reading this (and any) Burke novel an experience rather than several hours to kill time with a story. Just my opinion, I've been wrong before, as someone much wiser than me once said.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about Hank Holland. The JLB style remains the same with the tough, rough main character, plagued by his own demons,but ultimately righteous in the end. It was enjoyable (and available in Mexico in Paperback, so not thoroughly out of print...) I'd read another book about the same character and I've read all but the most recent one of the Dave Robicheaux collection.

The introduction of Texas sheriff Hack Holland is brought back into print with this new edition. Hack in this novel is a troubled attorney suffering from his experiences as a POW during the Korean Conflict, in which he suffered wounds and subsequent harsh treatment at the hands of the invading Chinese captors. His father was a Congressman, and after his release and return to the States Hack goes on to law school and a successful practice in partnership with his brother Billy Bob. He marries a socially prominent woman, and both she and the brother cover for his excessive drinking and social foibles.

The story picks up with Hack running for Congress, with a long-serving U.S. Senator sponsoring him. The only problem is that Hack really doesn't want to run for public office and keeps avoiding meetings, his wife and brother continuing to cover for him by making excuses. Then a buddy from the war is railroaded by prejudiced rednecks in the Texas Valley on the Rio Grande and sentenced to the penitentiary. Hack goes to his rescue, filing an appeal. As a result, he becomes involved with the activities of the United Farm Workers union (a no-no in the right wing Texas area) and falls in love with a beautiful union worker.

The reader can respond with ambivalence to Hack, but the author portrays him sympathetically despite his unceasing drinking and womanizing. Written with a hard edge, foretelling the many future novels he would go on to write about Dave Robicheaux, Billy Bob and Hack Holland and others, Mr. Burke builds each situation with tension and suspense.

Recommended.

James Lee Burke's books are always well written, poignant. He is one of my favorite authors and never miss one of his if can help it. His writing I consider literature more than most best sellers. When reading his descriptions of locale, always seems to actually place one in the scene. One can feel the wind, feel the sun, hear the leaves in the trees; is actually like being there.

That James Lee Burke's "Lay Down My Sword and Shield" is back in print will be of particular interest to Burke fans who know Hackberry Holland only from last year's "Rain Gods." By the time of "Rain Gods," Hack Holland is a grizzled old Texas lawman still not ready to call it quits even though he is in his early seventies. But in 1971's "Lay Down My Sword and Shield," the only other novel featuring Hack Holland, he is a young Texas lawyer being courted for a run at the U.S. Congress - hopefully, to fill the very spot once held by his father.

Even as a young man, though, Hack Holland is damaged goods, already suffering many of the anxieties and weaknesses that will haunt him and shape him into the man he will be almost forty years later. Hack is one of those Korean War veterans with the unfortunate experience of having been captured and imprisoned by the Chinese during the war. What happened to him inside that prison, told primarily in one long, flashback chapter, is something that often still wakes him in a drenching sweat during the middle of the night.

Hack Holland is a heavy drinker. He uses alcohol to help him make it through the night, and he uses it to help him tolerate the people he deals with during the day. Hack has an attitude problem when it comes to certain kinds of people: powerbrokers, society uppity-ups, bigots, phonies, and anyone else who tries to tell him what to do. Luckily for him, he has enough money to get away with not trying too hard to hide his feelings. But hide his feelings is exactly what he will have to do if he is serious about becoming a United States congressman.

If nothing else, Hack Holland is loyal to his friends, especially those he knows from his time in Korea. Now one of those old friends is in bad trouble down in South Texas, having been convicted of assaulting a peace officer while walking a picket line in support of higher wages for migrant farm workers. Hack heads that way, intending to do little more than file an appeal for his old friend, but he soon finds himself walking that same picket line and in the same trouble as the friend he is there to rescue. Perhaps because of his own prisoner-of-war experiences, Hack cannot resist coming to the defense of the underdog - and it doesn't hurt, too, that he is strongly attracted to a beautiful young organizer he meets in that little South Texas town. Hack Holland is, first and foremost, about ensuring justice for those too weak to fight for it themselves, and he will fight until he drops.

"Lay Down My Sword and Shield" tells a powerful story, especially when dealing with Hack Holland's war experiences and the brutality suffered by those walking the picket line, but it does not exhibit the keen storytelling skills longtime James Lee Burke readers have come to expect. The book is, at times, overburdened by its long, descriptive set-up passages, making it a somewhat more difficult book to read than the ones for which Burke deservingly has become so well known. Even so, Burke fans should not miss this one.

As with all other books by James Lee Burke, this is beautifully written. However, the hero(?), Hack Holland, never seems believable to me. To the extent he is, I utterly dislike him - he's a two-dimensional character who is an alcoholic and a womanizer. That I can take, but what I don't understand is why such a nogood would have the slightest interest in Mexican laborers, other that to get drunk a lot and often have sex with a beautiful Spanish woman.

It's as if an untalented writer wrote most of a book and, then, paid James Lee Burke to write the descriptive parts. I'll admit that, according to my Kindle download, I've read only 85% of the book. However, I doubt I'll read the rest because I really just have no interest in finding out what happens to Hack Holland, his girlfriend, wife or brother.

I'm going back to Dave Robicheaux.

Lay Down My Sword And Shield by James Lee Burke

This book details the rebirth of Hackberry Holland. He returned from the Korean War, rebuilt his life and now he is recreating himself. The hard panned setting and historic family background contribute to his reassessment of his identity.

Describing the book doesn't really do justice to the story or it's fluidity. The author reminds me of Pat Conroy and his poetry like prose. The descriptions of the countryside and people are thorough and beautiful. Hack's experiences as a POW in Korea are horrific. His sublimation of both experience and emotions would fit quite well with PTSD victims in today's conflicts. His drinking appears to be fuel by displaced anger. Hack's reactions to his environment and his refusal to be what his family expects him to be as opposed to what he wants to be is a thumbnail of the book's plot.

We tend to forget how recent equal rights are. There are parts of the book that seem practically fantastic that are supported by facts and recollection of the times. I suspect younger readers may even find some of the incidents hard to believe. Burke's book was extraordinarily done.

I highly recommend the book.

The James Lee Burke books are BEST on audio.
Will Patton reads with a soft southern voice that makes the characters live in Burkeland.
Just an idea.

Linda Palmer

With LAY DOWN MY SWORD AND SHIELD Burke conjures up more than a few devils for his lead character Hackberry Holland and how he battles them and works his way beyond the scarring process is a treat for those of us who appreciate good storytelling and fine writing.
Burke's writing here reminds me a lot of the early Elmore Leonard (especially with the opening chapter) but has a signature style all its own. It's a story of self destruction and redemption one slow and painful step at a time and it is well worth adding to your reading list.